When Will Hezbollah Reassess Its Strategy?

Just as Arab governments have their own shortcomings and failures, many opposition movements have made serious mistakes of their own. Likewise, while occupation is responsible for undeniable crimes, armed resistance movements are not immune from error. Yet the only major Arab political experience that has openly embraced self-criticism and public accountability was that of Gamal Abdel Nasser following the 1967 defeat. Since then, the Arab world has witnessed numerous policy failures, strategic miscalculations, setbacks, and defeats, but few political actors have been willing to acknowledge responsibility or engage in meaningful self-examination.

The experience of Hezbollah, the author argues, illustrates a political and ideological project that has suffered repeated setbacks. Its strategic choices have resulted in thousands of casualties and widespread destruction across southern Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs. Nevertheless, the movement has continued to employ the same rhetoric, portraying itself as victorious while persisting in its political course and defending what the author describes as a war fought in support of Iran, regardless of the cost to Lebanon.

According to the author, Hezbollah has sought to consolidate the Shiite political arena behind its ideological agenda and to monopolize its representation. It has promoted a narrative portraying one community as "the resistance" while implying that other Lebanese communities have failed in their national responsibilities. In doing so, it has attempted to impose a single concept of resistance upon a diverse society that cannot be expected to reach consensus on the existence of an armed organization operating alongside the national army or on engaging in military confrontation with Israel in solidarity with another state—Iran. Those who disagree with Hezbollah's policies, the author contends, are often accused of serving American or Israeli interests.

The assumption that Hezbollah's popular base must, by necessity, support military confrontation with Israel—whether on behalf of Iran or in the name of the Palestinian cause—is, in the author's view, an idea that requires fundamental reconsideration. Such an expectation, he argues, runs contrary to the natural diversity of political opinion and cannot legitimately reduce an entire country, religious community, or faith to a single ideological or political position, regardless of how noble that cause may be.

The author further argues that this issue remains one of the principal sources of Lebanon's current political deadlock. The debate is not simply between those who support negotiations with Israel and regard a framework agreement as the only realistic option, and those who oppose such negotiations. Rather, he contends that the weaknesses of any potential framework agreement—of which he believes there are many—have been compounded by the wars Hezbollah chose to enter despite opposition from much of Lebanese society, thereby weakening the Lebanese government's negotiating position.

The author maintains that Hezbollah has never accepted responsibility for the devastation inflicted upon villages in southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut. In his view, the movement should openly acknowledge that it miscalculated its strategic choices, reassess its reliance on armed resistance, and redefine its role within Lebanese society.

He suggests that Hezbollah could instead become a supporter of a strategy based on civil resistance, exposing Israeli actions through legal, diplomatic, and popular means rather than military confrontation. Likewise, he argues that the organization's relationship with Iran should evolve into a political partnership rather than a military alliance, reflecting the reality that Hezbollah operates within the sovereign state of Lebanon alongside other communities whose political choices deserve equal respect.

More broadly, the author concludes that armed resistance movements across the Arab world—particularly Hezbollah and Hamas—should have the courage to undertake comprehensive self-criticism, acknowledge the mistakes they have made, and conduct a genuine reassessment of their experiences for the benefit of their own societies rather than for any external actors.

Originally published in Al-Masry Al-Youm (Egypt).